Musings on the Darwin Awards

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pantodragon 121

If ever there were candidates for the Darwin Awards, it was Thelma and Louise, the lead characters from Ridley Scott’s film of the same name.

Thelma in particular was a real dork-head. I mean, what on earth did she expect? At the start of their vacation, long before reaching their destination, Thelma insisted on going into a bar. She dressed in clothes that said “I want sex”, got really drunk, behaved provocatively, and when a man started “hitting” on her and offering her what she wanted, instead of staying with her friend Louise, she danced with him and gave him a whole load of encouragement. When he accompanied her outside and attempted to have sex with her, she decided that she didn’t want sex after all. He then goaded Louise who was pointing a gun at him. Stupid or what? She shot. He died. Yet another candidate for the Darwin Awards bit the dust.

When Louise, for the second time in 24 hours, tried to blame Thelma for getting them into deep ****, Thelma had the audacity to get angry. Where Louise held her tongue and tried to be “reasonable”, I’d have been tempted to give Thelma a good “crack across the side of the head” (as my grandmother used to call that sort of disciplining).

Later, the roles become reversed. Thelma got the pair out of the trouble that Louise got them into. The only sense Thelma exhibited in the entire film (except for having the guts to rob a supermarket and to disable a bothersome policeman by stealing his gun and locking him in the boot of his patrol car) was that, having tasted real freedom for the first time in her entire life, she realised that returning to her old existence was untenable. (“…and freedom, that which no man gives up but with life itself…”) However, since the women had managed to get themselves backed into such a very tight corner, that realisation came too late --- the only option left was their dramatic suicide.

Film plots are littered with candidates for the Darwin Awards. “Thelma and Louise” is no exception. Do you have any favourite candidates?